3. It's the safest version of Windows ever: User Account Control is a pain to every computer user. Here is how to turn it off. Goto http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm to know how to turn the nuisance off!!
5. It can find your stuff: Use Windows Desktop Search, but who the heck wants it when they have got Google Desktop. Right? Wrong! Well, apparently there used to an internal tool in Microsoft namely FindMyStuff which spawned off the first version of MSN Desktop Search 1.0 . This tool used to have a cool functionality i.e. Natural Language Search. Apparently, that feature is still there in Windows Desktop Search installed with Vista, you only need to know how to enable it.
Press Alt in Windows explorer. Go to Tools->Folder Options. Click on Search tab and in that, check natural language checkbox as shown in the screenshot.
70. 3000% Speed Benefit: There is an ultra-cool feature in Vista: Sleep mode. What this allows is to shut down and turn on your computer within 2 seconds. A laptop in a sleep mode uses less than 1 watt of energy. Microsoft documentation tells us that you should never use turn-off in Windows Vista and always use the sleep mode. For the technically inclined, sleep mode saves your computer state in your main memory/RAM rather than saving it on the hard disk as hibernate used to do.
But apparently, Microsoft only puts it at number: 70 on its list of top 100 reasons to upgrade to Vista!! An upgrade of startup and shutdown times from 60 seconds to 2 seconds i.e. 3000% increase is just the 70th reason to upgrade!!.
Another downside, while resuming from Sleep mode, your computer greets you with a black screen, so you don't know if your computer is broken or is it resuming. If they had just gone through the pain of displaying their logo with a simple running bar, they would have hit the home run with this feature too.
And this one apparently failed to even make it to the list!!
Sidebar Gadgets: They could have revolutionized the world of Desktop Computing with Sidebar Gadgets. Some things they should have done and they did not:
- Integrate Gadget Development Environment in Visual Studio 2008 and provide a new project type: Windows Gadget.
- Enable Silverlight with Sidebar Gadgets
- Hold annual or bi-annual global competitions with amazing prize money to develop gadgets for Windows Vista Sidebar.
- Integrate Office, messenger, Windows Desktop Search etc with Sidebar Gadgets by publishing their own gadgets.
- Publicize Office and Windows live services by providing gadgets.
- Integration of Sidebar Gadgets into Windows Update Services.
There were more reasons in my mind, but since the post has gone long enough, I will stop the ranting with just one more! If you ever want to undersell your products, do it like Vista. It is a great product with excellent technology and great business potential, but somehow it's just not there.
Hi Deepank,
ReplyDeleteIt's really great to see this post but the given link isn't working. Kindly replace it with the correct one.
Thanks Satyajeet, link corrected
ReplyDeleteGreat post.Its very true that Microsoft doesnt publicise their product to the fullest and marketing of the product is indeed concerning. Just imagine how much would they earn else !!! Atleast the person who uses it must know the worth of ur product. As it is said "If people aren't going to talk about your product, then it's not good enough". And for that product makers(read MS) must publicise their products to a more larger extent.
ReplyDeleteNicely written criticism of Microsoft(that too from MS employee :)) but I beg to differ a bit. It's only a personal view what one likes or not. The feature which you think must be in top 20 list, might not look as fantastic to someone else. So, it's just a way of seeing it. Few see it half filled and few say it's half empty.
ReplyDeleteJitesh, the main reason for my criticism of MS is that I love their products and I can't see them going down against any other product in the market.
ReplyDeleteRegarding these choices, I mean look at it in any way, these are just some of the things that could have been done right.